HP 3000 Manuals HP 3000 Manuals
Chapter 7 PERIPHERALS
Introducing StorageTek 4220 and 4280 Support
by Aurelio Gomez
Commerical Systems Division
The StorageTek 4220 and 4280 1/2 inch cartridge tape peripherals are now
supported on MPE/iX. The StorageTek 4220 and 4280 cartridge tape
peripherals are only supported with the Automatic Cartridge Loader
System. The Automatic Cartridge Loader System consists of an autoloader
unit and a tape magazine that can hold up to ten cartridge tapes.
The StorageTek 4220 and 4280 devices are only supported through the FCOPY
and STORE/TurboSTORE HP30319, HP36387, HP36388, HP36397, and HP36398
products. All other usage (that is, System Boot, DUMP, User Logging,
File System Access and others) of these devices on MPE/iX is not
supported.
The STORE/TurboSTORE products were modified to perform in a more
user-friendly manner with peripherals supporting an autoloader unit. The
STORE/TurboSTORE products were modified to process a device powerfailure,
write-protected media, and bad media in a different manner.
DEVICE POWERFAILURE PROCESSING
Previously, a device powerfailure would cause STORE/TurboSTORE to mark
the currently mounted media bad. You would then be prompted to mount the
next media. This processing was modified to not mark the media bad and
to reuse the currently mounted media after the tape drive is placed
online.
Specifically for the StorageTek 4220 and 4280 peripherals, a powerfailure
recovery during a multireel STORE has the following scenario:
* The first tape in the autoloader is mounted by you by pressing the
load button. STORE uses the complete tape and issues a rewind
unload to dismount the current tape. The next tape is
automatically mounted by the device. STORE continues writing to
the currently mounted media.
* A device powerfailure occurs while STORE is writing to the Nth
tape. On device powerup, the device automatically rewinds the
currently mounted media and ejects to its previous position in the
autoloader unit. The autoloader unit is then reset to the initial
load position. You are required to press the LOAD button to mount
the first tape.
* After the tape is mounted, STORE checks if the currently mounted
tape is part of the current STORE Set and if it is the reel being
used at the time of the powerfailure. If the currently mounted
tape matches these conditions, STORE reuses the tape and rewrites
the files from the beginning of the tape reel. Otherwise, the
tape reel is unloaded and the next tape is automatically loaded
and checked until either the correct reel is found or a tape not
part of the STORE Set is encountered.
WRITE-PROTECTED AND BAD MEDIA MESSAGES
For StorageTek devices, an error status is returned if a write is
attempted to write-protected media. STORE/TurboSTORE processes this
error by unloading the write-protected media, which then causes the next
available tape to be loaded. In addition, STORE/TurboSTORE keeps track
of the number of write-protected media encountered for the STORE
operation. On completion of the STORE/TurboSTORE operation, the output
listing will indicate the total number of write-protected reels
encountered (if any were encountered) if the SHOW option was specified.
STORE/TurboSTORE has been enhanced to count and indicate the total number
of marked bad tapes encountered. On completion of the STORE/TurboSTORE
operation, the output listing indicates the number of tapes marked bad
encountered (if any were encountered) if the SHOW option was specified.
The write-protected and bad media messages provide the user with
additional information. When removing tapes from the autoloader after a
STORE operation, the user needs to look at the total write-protected, bad
media counts, and the tapes actually used in order to remove the correct
number of tapes.